Thursday, 13 February 2014

Read
the case study on Slumdog Millionaire and answer the following questions:

Explain where the storyline for the
film came from. Give examples.

(p. 163)

The story begins with
Vitkram Swarup, an Indian diplomat in London and author of the source novel,
Q&A. he appears to have drawn on two specific new stories – one in the UK
and one in India. A retired army officer in the UK was found convicted of fraud
after cheating on the quiz show Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. Since the show
was massivley popular in India, Swarup then thought, ‘who would be the least
lickely winner of the top prize in the Indian version – who might be accused of
cheating?’ A scientist in Dheli experimented by putting a computer only
accessible into a poor area of the city. The children quickly learned how to
use computers without any help from adults. From these two stories Swarup
constructed the narrative of a young man from the slums who knows the answers
to the quiz questions because they each refer to something he has experienced
in his life, rather than knowledge he gained through education.

List the ways in which Simon Beaufoy
changed the story. Explain why this was done. (p. 164)

-The central
character becomes muslim and one of the two brothers from Mumbai slum. His name
is changed to Jumal. In the novel, the character is an orphan brought up in an
English cleryman’s house in Dheli and there is an explanation of why he can
speak English and why he has a name that spans India’s three major religions.

-Several of
the sub-plots are removed to make the story line clearer.

-The romance
element is made more important and runs across the whole story line.

How did Tessa Ross and Christian
Colson arrange funding? Why is this significant? (p. 165)

While Beaufoy was
doing this work, Ross was securing the property in partnership with producer
Christian Colson. A well-known UK producer of smaller films, Colson was in 2005
still associated with Celador Films, part of the group that owned the rights to
WWTBAM. Swarup had not used the show’s title in the novel, but Ross thought
that it was essential to be able to use it in the film. When Colson secured
these rights, he was able to fund the production of the film to pathe in the UK
and Ireland and France, Warner Bros in North America and other companies in
territories around the world. With the revenue from this sale, Colson could
cover the costs of production but would retain control – meaning that the film
would remain a UK production without interference from the Hollywood
distributor.

Explain the term ‘Bollywood’ (p.
165/168)

Bollywood is
relitvely recent term. It refers to certain forms of popular cinema made in
hindi, the official language of India understood by about 40 percent of the
population, mainly in the north. The capital of Bollywood is Mumbai where about
two hundred films are made each year (with big budgets).Most people outside of
India have heard of ‘Bollywood’ but although this is arguably the richest and
most high profile of the Indian film industries, it is not representative of
all Indian cinema.

What was the impact of Warner Bros
closing it’s ‘specialist’ film labels on the distribution of Slumdog
Millionaire? How was
this resolved? (p. 166)

There was every
chance that Slumdog would be pushed straight to DVD in North America as a
result. Boyle and Colson rushed to Hollywood to try and save the film and
succeed in persuading Warner Bros to sell the rights to another studios
specialist division, Fox searchlight. Fox searchlight had extreme success with
taking low budget films and taking it into mainstream cinemas.

Slumdog Millionaire is not a Hollywood film. Explain how
it has been caught between Hollywood and Bollywood. (p. 167-170)

Slumdog is not a
Hollywood film, though it has been taken to be one. In fact, for several
reasons, Slumdog has been caught between Hollywood and Bollywood. Few audiences
around the world think that it is British film. Partly this is because the film
has been so successful that is has by accident, fulfilled the strong desire on
behalf of both Hollywood and Bollywood producers to create a film that could
succeed in both markets and then around the world.

In your opinion, what made Slumdog
Millionaire a
successful film? Discuss pre-production, production, distribution and
exhibition.

Slumdog millionaire was a successful film because of the different languages it was screened in. It was a big hit in India as it was mistaken for three types of films Hollywood, Bollywood and British. The film looks quite cultural and traditional. It was an eye opener to the poverty in India and the parts that you don't often see. People had read the book so they knew what types of things they were expecting and books are often made film successes. The production of the film would have taken quite a lot of work because not everyone would have spoken English that well so getting the image across to the actors and the child actors would have been quite hard.

Thursday, 6 February 2014

FundingSky
TV is a UK television channel that is funded by advertisers and subscription
charges sourced from customers. This station offers a wide range of programmes
that are also available in high definition. Sky TV has over 10 million
customers and also provides broadband and home phone call packages

Sky 1 is the twentieth largest television channel in the UK, and the
fifteenth largest commercial broadcaster. It boasts an average of just over 2
million television viewers a day.

The grid below highlights the approximate cost to advertise on Sky 1,
with rates varying significantly depending on many factors, primarily the size
and profile of the viewing audience. The estimated costs for advertising on Sky
1, shown below, are based on buying 1 x 30 second advert and should be used as
a guide only.

Time slot

Example Programming

Est Cost 30"

B Breakfast 0600-0930

London Ambulance

£50.00

D Daytime 0930-1730

Airline

£150.00

Early Peak 1730-2000

The Simpsons

£4,000.00

Late Peak 2000-2300

House

£4,750.00

Night Time 2300-Close

Lost

£150.00

Ownership- Programming/Scheduling/Own Programming

By having these shows on these times it shows which ones they see as their peak shows and why they would replay them over and over again.

Target Audience -
Sky wanted to focus on people aged 16-34 for there target audience, there genre is mainly crime and airing american programmes that don't air in the UK with out a subscription.

Tuesday, 4 February 2014

In the video 'Here it goes again' they use single camera shots as it is shot all in one place.
The video is all very straight forward but would have needed a lot of rehearsal time in order to pull the routine off.
The lighting is quite bright as it is in a light coloured room.The cost of this production would be quite low as they wouldn't have to pay for much, they could rent the tredmills in order to keep the cost down and they would only need one camera.
The only thing that could be a problem is because of the amount of takes they would probably have to take so it could be predictable on how long the filming could take, they could film it once and it could be perfect OR they could film it 200 times before getting the perfect scene as it wont be done in takes it would be one long routine.

In OK GO music video's they tend to always use a single shot in stead of multiple cameras this is easier in some ways for the production team as it makes it one less thing to worry about, they also need to work out the lighting so by using one camera you only need one camera man that also helps to lower the price of the music video.

OK GO tend to be quite an original group with most of their videos as they tend to do quite low cost videos but make them to be something that not everyone has seen before and something that people will remember in the future. In the "Here it goes again" video they did a routine on the treadmill and the video was so low-cost they couldn't stop shooting it had to be one whole good run to make sure they got the best shots, they tended to use long or single shot takes, this restores a sense of wonder to the musical number by letting the performers humanity shine through and allowing them to do what they do best with a minimum of filming interruptions. In this video they used single camera shot. In most of their videos they have made them to be so original that people talk about it and has increased their YouTube views after four years of being released it received 50million views. The reason they are well known is for their quirky and elaborate music videos.